The Bonaventure Project

A functional work of art

The Bonaventure project started with the to
refresh an important entryway into the city of Montreal by replacing the
existing Bonaventure elevated expressway built in 1966 by a ground-level
urban boulevard called Robert-Bourassa Boulevard. The part of the highway
is owned by city of Montreal between Lachine Canal and Notre-Dame street.
The project has been design under three main themes: create a prestigious,
functional and friendly downtown entrance to help reconnect
the surrounding neighborhood and support urban redevelopment through strategic
public interventions (projetbonaventure.ca).
With the existing Bonaventure highway being an important access way in
Montreal, the construction needed to cause the least amount of inconvenience
possible, especially to traffic.

Reinforced Earth Company Ltd. (RECo) was retained to design and supply
Retaining Soil Systems (RSS) retaining walls for an important part of the
infrastructure work which was the construction of ramp to Duke and Nazareth
Street. The redevelopment of these streets in urban streets included the
addition of trees and wide sidewalk. This part of the project was been
awarded to Construction Bauval. Reinforced Earth TerraPlus®
systems with big precast concrete panels (3,0 m X 1,5 m) was used for this
project on which a very specific and unique architectural feature has been
added on panels. Many bulge lines on each panel needed to join each other
requiring a very high level of precision in the design and production of
precast panels. The panels were painted afterward to create the expected
effect.

The wall construction needed to be made simultaneously with the existing
structure still in service to be able to reduce the impact on traffic.
The crash barrier was installed on top of Reinforced Earth walls and crash
load considerations needed to be included in the design.

The project that began in 2011 was completed in 2017 with the urban landscaping
after the demolition of the elevated structure. RECo supplied the Reinforced
Earth walls in 2 stages in 2015 (Duke Street) and 2016 (Nazareth Street).